Dr Patrick Smylie

Dr Patrick Smylie


I studied BA  Modern History at the University of Westminster from 2003-06, and gained a  MA in Irish History from Queen's University in 2007 and was  awarded my doctorate there in 2010.  I have been lecturing in history at the University of Westminster since 2011. My teaching has a 20th century focus and cuts across Irish  British and US history. 

I am the Course Leader for the BA History Degree


Irish communism and more broadly the left in Ireland from the development of New Unionism until the end of the Cold War; Irish political organisations in Britain; twentieth century social and political history. Urban History with a focus on Belfast. 

Publications

Francis Devine and Patrick Smylie (eds), Left Lives in 20th Century Ireland, Vol. 3: Communist Lives (Umiskin Press, 2020).

Patrick Smylie, 'Communism in Cold War Belfast, 1945-62', Labour History Review (2020), 85 (1), pp. 59-83.

Patrick Smylie, 'A Cautionary Antecedent: The Belfast Career of John Bruce Wallace' in Francis Devine, and Séan Byers (eds), William Walker,1870-1918, Belfast Labour Unionist, Centenary Essays (Umiskin Press, 2018).

Patrick Smylie, 'The CPGB, the Connolly Association and Irish communism, 1945–1962', Labour History (2017) 58 (5), pp. 639-655.

Patrick Smylie, 'Betty Sinclair' in O'Connor, E. and Cunningham J.(eds), Studies in Irish radical leadership is a collection of biographies of labour leaders and radical activists (Manchester University Press, 2016).

Current Research Projects

  • Patrick is currently working on journal articles pertaining to Irish Communism, and Civil Disobedience in Ireland. 
  •  'Sectarian suburbs ' a book which examines the impact of 'the Troubles' on Housing policy in Belfast


  • History Research Group